Democratic 3rd District Congressional Candidate Brian Wonnacott says he’s not going to do much fundraising in his race against Republican incumbent Jason Chaffetz.
In fact, if you look at Federal Election Commission filings, Wonnacott has not reported any fundraising at all so far. He tells UtahPolicy he will finally file a report this quarter, but it will only show a “few hundred dollars.”
“I am starting to fundraise,” laughs Wonnacott. “I’ve got some checks that I have yet to deposit.”
When asked if he would have enough time to start the fundraising process in order to mount a serious challenge to Chaffetz, Wonnacott lets out a heavy sigh.
“I debate this just about every day,” he says. “I was kind of drafted as a candidate and I am debating as to how much I want to but into it. I’m not planning on doing a lot of fundraising because I don’t want to spend other people’s money.”
Wonnacott says he was originally planning on running for the 3rd District seat as an independent candidate because he wanted to participate in some debates. However, he noticed a few days before the filing deadline closed that the Democrats did not have a candidate, so decided to run under their banner.
Wonnacott is a realist about his chances, noting that his district is 70% Republican, and Democrats struggle to break 30%.
“I want to run a campaign that will shake things up a bit,” he says.
When asked what that might mean, Wonnacott says “I want to talk candidly about politics in Utah, what it means to be a candidate and give voters a reason to think about what they’re voting for.”
Wonnacott doesn’t have much of an online presence to support his campaign. He does not have a campaign website and his campaign Facebook page only has 19 total likes.
